Second coming of the yearly review. I really enjoyed doing this the first time and I’m guessing it’ll be an yearly ritual I’ll follow from here on out. Especially after following last year’s writing goals, I’ve come to quite enjoy the cathartic experience that writing is. Again, no fixed structure to this post, but building upon last year’s post as we go.

work

I felt I was more involved in product discussions and ad-hoc issues more than actual hands-on work that I was more inclined to do. I had known this and I found a really good opportunity at the end of the year. I started at SUSE this new year and I’ll be focusing on container technologies. I’ve always been passionate about open source and have always felt like trying out such an opportunity if I ever chance upon one, I’m super excited for what’s to come.

projects

While reviewing the previous goals in my annual OKRs, this was an eyesore. I wrote about this in 2021 too and unfortunately, things haven’t changed around much. Although I did briefly work on a toy DB engine and a static site generator, the truth is that I didn’t find the inspiration to see either of those to completion. This year, I’m at least looking forward to complete the former and have this site being backed up by it. Despite the dismal disclaimer, as part of an issue I was struggling with at work, I wrote a small kubernetes controller which I then further hacked at our internal hackathon at HackerRank. It was fun.

Not so dreary were the open source contributions. I’m hoping, with the new role, I’d be in a better position to contribute more this year.

reading & writing

I had consciously chosen not to participate in the Goodreads reading challenge in 2022. I found that with the challenge in tow, I was trying to push towards quantity rather than quality sometimes. This year, I chose which books to read purely on the basis of my interest at that specific period of time. I especially enjoyed The God Delusion, Man’s Search for Meaning, Walden, Digital Minimalism and Annihilation of Caste.

Writing also, surprisingly went quite well compared to 2021:

$ find _posts/ -type f -name "2022-*" | wc -l
8

Not bad, not bad at all but I’m going to improve this as much as I possibly can. I’ve some ideas in the pipeline for both technical and non-technical posts and I’m going to strive for quality as well as quantity this time around.

health

Continued lifting for the better part of the year but had to deal with recurring shoulder impingement throughout the year, it was frustrating but at the end of the year, I started seeing a physiotherapist with whom I’m working on strengthening the rotator cuff. Hopefully it’ll not be as big of an issue as it already has been going forward, but thankfully I was not away from the gym for the most part.

Halfway through the year, I moved back to Bengaluru which meant no cycling at all, which was a bummer. But I continued playing Badminton and also threw in swimming occasionally for good measure which helps keep things on track. On the nutrition front, I tried a few different diets with not-so-life-changing results as some online articles would have you believe but thanks to these experiments, I know the foods I feel good after eating, while simultaneously achieving my macros. I’ll still be experimenting for as long as I can though.

I have some ambitious health goals for 2023, such as reaching a certain bodyfat percentage and weight. Looking forward to them, will check back in ‘24.

travel

I was able to overshoot my travel plans after so long. Early on, I went on a workcation to Goa and then to Nepal and ended the year with a trip to Vietnam. Travel, to me, is explorative and not just a means to turn the dials off. It is another excuse for me to keep learning about different cultures which I find satisfying and satiating. I’m grateful to be in a place where I can make travel plans and execute them.

other

Learning Japanese was put on the backpedal(すみません), in that I didn’t learn a lot of new stuff, just kept on revising the stuff I had learnt already. Safe to say, I didn’t appear for the JLTP exam in 2022. I’m going to attempt this ambitious goal once again in 2023 with more vigour and see where we end up.

This year, I’m also focusing more on how I retain information and how I take notes. I’ve started using Obsidian and have been reading this series of posts about note-taking by Jamie Rubin. I intend to be more mindful and comprehensive while taking notes and working my way towards increasing my overall retention of topics I find valuable and useful. I’ll most probably write a post about this sometime in 2023 so I’ll keep it short here.

Finally, a thing I realized this past year is that I value solitude a lot. I tend to avoid a gathering of more than 2 individuals just because I think the discussions quickly spirals into drivel one way or another. So far, I had been under the impression that this was not acceptable or socially correct as people around you would quicly have you know. But I recently read Susan Cain’s Quiet which throws light on being quiet or being introverted is just another, even better in some ways, way of life. I’m curious to know more about how to optimize (for lack of a better word), such a way of life.

2023

I have some specific areas I’ve identified which I’m going to be focusing more on in 2023, most notably:

• Technical Education: the pipeline with which I learn most non-technical things in life seem to be well in place (books, videos, discussions, etc) but I want to focus more on education from a technical standpoint. I aim to be a T-shaped individual, I like going in-depth on a topic but to find said topic, I like to diversify the kind of topics I’m reading or learning about.
• Health: Focusing more on my nutrition and body composition while continuing to progressively overload in the gym. This will, of course, involve a lot more discipline and work and I’m devising a plan on how to proceed towards this goal.
• Career: I’m still looking for objective goals for the next year but not all things have to be intricately measure, and at this point, I’m just really looking forward to enjoying my new role, working on the technologies I like and in a domain I’ve always had an inclination towards.
• Lifestyle: I’m at a point in my life where I’d like to experiment more with my lifestyle, not in a materialistic way, but perhaps spiritualistic or stoic. As mentioned, I’d like to also play around with solitude. I don’t think I have a clear picture in my mind yet but I’ll whittle this goal out as I learn more.

That’s it for this year’s edition, thanks for sticking till the end.

:wq